3032/The Secret Origin of: The Endbringers

The Secret Origin of: The Endbringers
Date of Scene:	16 September 2015
Location:	Caverns of Prophecy (CP)
Synopsis:	Exactly what it says on the tin.
Cast of Characters:	165, 554

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Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    It's hard to say how easy or how difficult it necessarily is to reach the Caverns. Granted, the Union has control of the area right now, but that doesn't necessarily explain whether they have a warpgate right on the entrance, how much climbing is involved.

    Of course, if there's one thing Ren Tanaka does well, it's scaling inclement environments in order to get from point A to point B.

    As such, we will open in the most logical place- with him in the temple, far enough in for the temperatures and enviroment to not be a problem. Maybe the Union's got oxygen tents and heating elements in here that won't disrupt the caverns' natural effects.

    Regardless, he's here, and he has a plan. A plan that involves Defiant.

Defiant (554) has posed:
     Luckily for Defiant, he has been fitted with enough augmentations to allow him to function in the most hostile environments across his world. Without his sealed armor, it's likely he'd still be able function without much of an issue. And Dragon, who walks at his side as he enters the Caverns, would have no issue with the thin air and lethal cold. In fact, she probably functions /better/ in the low temperatures.

     They do skip the stairs, though. A dragoncraft allows them to reach the temple. The pair step out, practically walking in step with each other. "We're here," Defiant says from behind his helm, "You have a plan?"

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    "Ah!"

    Ren isn't wearing any particularly complicated mountain-climbing equipment. Must have taken some of it off now he's in a somewhat less hostile environment. He wanders over- "This is actually the first time I think we've met in person, isn't it?"- and offers handshakes.

    Then, he casts an eye over to the central feature of the caverns- that enormous, mysterious pool that the temple was built around. "Yes. The plan."

    "The pool interacts with people, as far as I know. It won't just show you exactly what you're thinking about- well, no, I suppose to a certain degree it will, but /thinking's/ the word there. You have to give it input."

    "Your memories and knowledge of the Endbringers are a lot more comprehensive than mine are," he says, walking the two of them over. "So if you can remember what you can of them- and yes, I know that's... probably gonna be a bit rough, but if you can do that, and work /backwards/, I should be able to do the part of pathfinder, in terms of memories. We'll start going backwards and then get to things you saw from another angle, and then to things you didn't see, and then eventually we'll get to things you /couldn't/ see."

    He sits down in front of the pool, in the place where, in the past, a lot of oracles and seers and Unionites and Confederates have before them. "And then we'll get to find out about the origins of the Endbringers."

Defiant (554) has posed:
     With their shining green gauntlets, the hands of the two capes are almost a touch too big to shake Ren's hand, but they manage. "It is," Dragon says, her Newfoundland accent still audible through the filter of her helmet. When Ren mentions the pool, she turns to look at it and reaches up to remove her helmet. Beneath it, her skin is dark, her hair black and long. "Like a lot of things in this Multiverse, I assume it will work on something like me?"

     Defiant, likewise, reaches up to remove his helmet. His skin is fairer, and half of his face is riddled with cybernetics, a neatly-trimmed dark beard running along his jaw. "It sounds like a good plan. We both have experiences with Leviathan," he says, not elucidating further. "That seems to be a good place to start. So, we just look into the pool?" Defiant asks.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    "I'm sure it will," Ren replies to Dragon. "You should be impressed." It is an interesting thing, how the multiverse doesn't make much of a distinction between 'self aware sentient things with souls'.

    Ren is aware of the existence of Leviathan, Behemoth and Khonsu, as far as the Endbringers the Union's encountered go. He's done as much research on them as he can in order to prepare himself for this, but- as the two of them choose to recall their memories- it's sufficient to say that not much could prepare him for actually seeing 'the real footage' version.

    Perhaps it's going to be now that he realizes exactly what the PRT means by the ominous idea of 'Jack will destroy the world within a year because if he doesn't we won't be able to stop the Endbringers from doing so'.

    He reassures himself that, as the images of the past begin, that this is the best help he can provide.

Defiant (554) has posed:
     The water swirls and, from out of the corner of his eye, Ren might glimpse Dragon reaching out for Defiant's hand. Leviathan. Behemoth's younger brother, who made up for his lack of age with the overwhelming power of his macro-hydrokinesis. Leviathan, whose shape begins to manifest in the pool as a black /thing/ - humanoid in the loosest sense, a too-lean body and arms that are too long, a tail. A head that is less of a head and more of a shape with uneven glowing eyes.

     And then Leviathan is fighting someone, the Endbringer somehow impossibly larger and more threatening than he ever was in life. A shining blue halberd, glimpsed through the eyes of the one wielding it, hacks him apart, and Armsmaster's voice - Defiant's voice - echoes through the cavern: "This victory? This killing blow? It's going to be /mine/!"

     It all breaks down suddenly into violence, noise and pain. Leviathan tears Armsmaster's arm off and that memory dissolves behind a haze of pain and visions of going face down into a flooded street.

     "Andrew? Andrew, Leviathan is here. It's going to be just like Kyushu all over again. Every wave is stronger than the last and by my calculations this whole island will be gone within the hour. There's not enough capes here to stop it."

     It's Dragon's voice, but the view isn't from her perspective, nor Defiant. Andrew Richter's voice replies, his voice firm and definite, "I still have time."

     He glances to the window, and Leviathan moves in the distance. Behind him, comes a wave that reaches up to the sky like a great wall. And, with that certainty, Ren knows that Leviathan's target is right there. "Andrew," Dragon says, "I have to go. I need to go now, it's going to take me at least twenty minutes to transfer myself to Vancouver. I'm telling the Guild where you are right now. They'll send helicopters but get to higher ground, /please/!"

     And then Dragon's avatar blinks off the computer screen and Richter sets to work, leaving behind his legacy - his final will and testament. When Leviathan's wave hits, there's a brief moment of pain, of panic, of water rushing - and then nothing.

     Things they saw, things they saw from another angle. Ren is right, but there's sill no answers. They'll need to go further, deeper.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Khonshu, perhaps, is irrelevant- well, no, not /irrelevant/, just that his relevance is secondary to the direction we're heading in. Ren remembers something- the idea that the Endbringers are somehow iterative, that their powers changed and increased depending on the powers of parahumans.

    A hundred ideas are moving around in his head; but rather than push them aside, he continues to consider them in context, like an explorer would determine things about his environment from every piece of it.

    Leviathan is terrifying, destructive. If world destruction was their only goal, it could have been sufficient, but then Khonsu showed up. What did Khonsu- what did Leviathan have that Behemoth didn't?

Ren's 'path' is a trail of destruction, of conflict. What is the purpose of the way the Endbringers operate? What is the reason they are doing things in the way- the order they're doing it?

Defiant (554) has posed:
     Behemoth. The first. He makes capes die by looking at them, by burning them from the inside out, regardless of the Manton effect. But there were capes who could stop him - Alexandria, Eidolon, others. Eventually, he became less of an apocalyptic threat and more of a controllable one.

     Leviathan. The second. Unlike Behemoth's kill aura, Leviathan could attack from range and his fury was that of the tides themselves. He killed more people, destroyed more land, fractured and spoiled water tables... And yet, even then, there were capes who could stop him with time and warning. In Brockton Bay, Eidolon froze the water behind him, preventing him from drawing upon it.

     They adapt. Whatever made them had the knowledge of every strategem, every possible piece of every possible puzzle. To fight them is to teach them. Certainly, slow, iterated adaptability is not a strength - it is positively weak. But when one has time and energy to spare, there is nothing in the world that can stop them.

     The Simurgh. The third. Smaller and less monstrous - angelic in her appearance. When she appeared in Switzerland, everyone thought she was a hero. And then her true nature was revealed. But even she could be stopped, because there existed capes who could account for her telepathy, her precognition, who could stop her before her psychic pollution could take effect. Scion. Eidolon.

     Khonsu. The fourth. With power over time and space, he exchanged one cataclysmic confrontation for a running battle. And yet, even with a complete change in tactics, he could be hindered and stopped. By Scion, by the Triumvirate.

     Tohu/Bohu. The bipartite Endbringer. Tohu, five miles tall, who turns the landscape against the defenders. Bohu, the smallest Endbringer, who copies the powers of three parahumans. And who had a similar power, whose power was to exhibit /four/ powers?

     Eidolon.

     He's always been there. He's always been instrumental. He's always found some way to win, no matter what. Some combination of powers that allow him to prevail.

     And, just like that, a voice.

     "You tried to take your life. The army, it was something you wanted?" A woman.

     "I just- I know I'm not in any condition to fight, to do drills or any of that. But there's other stuff I can do. Desk jobs."

     "That's Eidolon," Defiant murmurs.

     "I can offer you better than a desk job."

     The cavern rings with the creaky running of wheelchair wheels. Things no one here saw.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
(How many powers does Eidolon have, anyway?)

    Ren is beginning to see the patterns emerge. The short-ranged monster gives way to the long ranged monster, but because it relies on other resources, it, in turn gives way to something less monstrous, with entirely self-contained powers. And she in turn gives way to something that completely changes the paradigm.

    And then to something that adapts the idea of 'running battle', a conflict where you'd use the terrain around you for advantages... It kind of makes sense.

    But it's all about fighting capes. Always, in every memory reflected in the pool, capes fighting. Not even the appearence of people from the multiverse has made them change- nothing that factors in the involvement of people from other worlds, just capes, the PRT fighting, Scion fi-

    Wait.

    Scion fighting.

    Why would Scion fight them if he was the one that made them? A sudden sparking thought that 'Scion made endbringers to destroy something something, Eden' is made and discarded.

    "Something doesn't add up," Ren murmurs as he watches. "Cauldron thought that eventually a Cape would show up that could beat the Endbringers. Or if not, they'd make enough to beat them conventionally. But constant adaptation runs counter to that idea. If they're growing to fight the strategies that people use against them, then they're reacting to current threats and not a hypothetical future one."

    Current threat.
    Current threat.

    Who's always there?

    "It's not a future enemy after all. It's always been the same enemy," he concludes.

Like a man climbing a mountain, he can sense the summit is there by the way the landscape's got as narrow as it can get. Your perspective shrinks. You can see the top. You know exactly how far to go, because you can measure it in inches, you only need to push forward a few more steps to be at the apex-

Defiant (554) has posed:
     How many powers does he have-

     You don't even have enough power to get through the day without wanting to kill yourself.

     You're confined to a wheelchair. You can't join the army, can't make a difference. You're ugly by anyone's standards - thinning hair, heavy cheeks, thick eyebrows, a big nose. You have nothing and you'll never have anything.

     And then the Doctor arrives. And while you know that she's almost certainly a deal with the devil, she offers you the chance to make a difference. She's a scientist, a doctor, and her elixir gives you power. But, more than that, it gives you /purpose/.

     Barring Scion, you are now the strongest individual on the planet. But it's like blasting insects with a superlaser - you have to dial down your powers, you can't /really/ show the world who and what you are. So, why are you even needed? Alexandria and Legend can do everything you're supposed to be doing and they don't even need to hide their ugly face behind a blank mask. You're the third member of the Triumvirate and, really, you might as well not even be there. You're not likable. You're not anything. Frankly, maybe you should have just killed yourself and not taken the devil's deal.

     And then, just like that, Behemoth appears. Alexandria can fight him, but Legend can't. No one can. But you can, and you can pull upon your well of unimaginable power - and it's so much deeper than you ever realised - and you swat Behemoth like a fly. You counter his powers, you fly rings around him. But then, eventually, Behemoth is nothing - and the depression returns. And the cycle continues with Leviathan, with the Simurgh, and when Behemoth is annihilated by Scion, you don't rejoice like the others because you're beginning to put the pieces together but you can't dare face the idea that your own insecurities are subconsciously-

     Because your power isn't what everyone thinks. The powers aren't random. You win too often for the powers to be random. Because your power is greater than that, because she gave you a power that is so incredible that it is burning itself dry and making you weaker and weaker...

     Your power gives you what you /need/.

     And there is one thing you need more than anything else. A reason to live, a chance to be the hero that you could never be before, an opportunity to indulge your suicidal tendencies because, eventually, you know that it will be too much for you. You'll hit a limit. You'll have to, because everyone has one.

    And you needed worthy opponents.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
Oh, Ren thinks, idly. That's interesting for future reference. In a way I got distracted, but in a way I didn't get distracted at all, because this is admittedly playing into the bigger picture overall and now all the pieces are coming together and I'm kind of talking to myself here in a way because this is rather compellingly fascinating and if I don't keep reminding myself to stay disconnected a bit I might lose sight of the trees for the forest.

    In any case, the question he was asking ended up being the logical endpoint of what they were already looking for. It's too important, the actions playing out in the pool to necessarily look away from to check his expression, but if you did...

    If you did, then you'd see that he looks frighteningly cold. And frighteningly old.

    "The Endbringers were responding to Eidolon," Ren concludes. "Constantly changing based on his need for a purpose. Constantly growing to provide him with the challenge he subconciously wanted."

    "And now he's been taken out by Armadia- they have no followthrough. Existential crisis. No frame of reference; square peg smashes through round hole and breaks the entire frame apart."

"Worldwide devastation, countless deaths. All caused by one man... wishing on the monkey's paw without even knowing he was holding it."

Defiant (554) has posed:
     The two capes are silent for a few moments, perhaps finding their senses, or coming to terms with what they've witnessed. Perhaps because of their shock, the images in the water and the heady sense of /knowing/ recedes into nothing more than water and vapors. "It explains the pattern," Dragon says, at last. "It explains why they've all just stopped ever since he was killed. And that's their origin - the thoughts of a man." She just sighs. "David."

     Defiant grunts. "So, now what?"

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    "Now what, indeed?" Ren replies. He's put his hand on his chin, grumpy. "What exactly do you do when the person you were created to oppose is dead or dying? They don't have any reason for existing outside of Eidolon, no... nothing they can do otherwise. In a strange way, I almost feel sorry for them."

    "...the only way of finding out would be to seek them out, to try and get them to ... to reason, to talk. Perhaps they don't know. Perhaps the multiverse is what they need. Someone outside of their context, to ... explain the truth to them in the same way that it's been explained to us."

    "I would like to think," he says, leaning his head back, looking at the ceiling, "That they don't /inherently/ want to destroy the world. That destroying the world was just the threat, the... the concept, what Eidolon knew was on the line if he didn't defeat them in a satisfying way. A way that satisfied him, that fulfilled his desires."

"Maybe we can find something better for them to do outside of your world."

"And if they do decide that destroying the world is what they want to do... well, at least now we understand how they work. We've beaten one already."

Defiant (554) has posed:
     "Only one of the Endbringers has ever seemed truly intelligent," Defiant says, glancing at Dragon. "The Simurgh. And she's too dangerous to allow contact with, certainly too dangerous to move off our world. However, even if much of your analysis is based on what feels like Freudian model of thinking, I think there could be a use for them."

     "Against Scion," Dragon says, finishing Defiant's thought.

     "Precisely. Tanaka, I don't think there's anything more for us here. The Union will need a report."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
Ren Tanaka nods. He picks himself up, dusts his butt off a bit, and pulls a pen and his well-worn (by this point) Brockton Notepad out of his pocket. "I'll start the first draft."